Turkey-US ties could fray further as Pentagon mulls arming YPG
Already rocky relations between Turkey and the United States are likely to worsen if the White House approves an expected Pentagon request to provide more weapons to the People's Protection Units.
Turkey’s fraught relations with the United States over the US alliance with the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in the war against the Islamic State (IS) in Syria have taken another turn for the worse as the Pentagon considers providing more arms to the Syrian Kurdish militia while continuing to spurn Turkish demands for armed drones.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan aired his displeasure in remarks at an Istanbul conference, saying, “You ask the United States for an unmanned aerial vehicle. … The answer you get is that the Congress didn’t approve this. This is the situation that we are constantly faced with. Hey, aren’t we supposed to be strategic allies?”
Burhan Kuzu, a veteran member of the Justice and Development Party and an Erdogan adviser, struck a similarly anti-American tone in an interview with Sozcu. Kuzu claimed that the botched coup attempt in Turkey in July had aimed to “create a Kurdish state in eastern Turkey” according to a plan hatched by Israel and Great Britain and “approved” by the United States.
Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik took things a step further, charging that the United States had “other plans” for Syria and that it was “stubbornly backing” the YPG.
